Monday, September 2, 2019

A KNIGHT'S TALE

Perhaps you remember, long long ago when our grandson was just a baby, how his silly Mimi went out and bought this amazing book about all the wonderful things you can make from cardboard.


Of course, he was nowhere near ready to do anything like that, so I stashed it away in the secret closet and all but forgot about it. Same thing happened when Hubby came home wagging a little box of wooden blocks that you could build castles with. We couldn't even get him interested in the giant colorful baby blocks a friend had passed down, so he'd probably be a tween before he'd be interested in these. Into the closet they went. Then, just this past week, I was in my favorite consignment store -- the one with lots of books and toys -- and saw that they had brought all their Halloween costumes out. Hanging on the end of the rack was a little knight's breastplate and shield set, for only $6.99. I was oh-so-tempted to buy it, but Calvin didn't have a clue what a knight was, what they did, or where they lived, so why bother? Besides, the secret closet (aka the linen closet) was running out of room! So I let it go.

Wouldn't you know, the very next day my daughter sent us a photo of Calvin playing with the little cardboard castle and catapult set he had built from this month's Kiwi Crate (Thank you Aunt Kathy!). He was having a blast using the catapult to knock the castle down, then getting to set it up again, over and over. In the blink of an eye I was running back to the thrift store to see if the armor was still there. It was.


Unfortunately, it didn't come with a sword, so he grabbed a squishy Batman baseball bat to use as his weapon. But then I remembered that amazing cardboard adventures book I had stashed away, and we made our own sword!



Then it was on to some castle-building with Papa John.



Know what I like most about little knights in shining armor? They just love being helpful.


And, speaking of shining armor, I'm thinking that on his next visit, we just might need to make this jousting helmet. Wouldn't you agree?


Papa got me plenty of duct tape on his last excursion to Ace Hardware. Now all I need is some cereal boxes!